


Messy

by Lyledebeast



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Banter, Blood and Injury, Gen, Introspection, Not Canon Compliant, Post-TRoS, Pre-Relationship, Rescue Missions, wound care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22671382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyledebeast/pseuds/Lyledebeast
Summary: Rose goes on a mission to rescue Hux after Finn, Poe, and Chewie leave him behind on the Steadfast.  Her feelings about it are more complicated than she originally thought.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rose Tico
Comments: 5
Kudos: 54





	Messy

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about this for a while. Thinking it and and saying it on Tumblr every day since I saw TRoS. Leaving Hux to die was a dick move and a stupid move, and if Rose was allowed to have lines in that movie, she'd have set them straight! (Okay, probably not, but she does in my version. Hope you enjoy!)

Rose couldn’t believe she had been roped into this. Sure, at the time it had been flattering that General Organa would think to send her on an independent mission, and she was sure it was the general’s words about how level-headed she had been on the Finalizer mission that swayed her into agreeing. Maybe she hadn’t quite thought that through.

After all, her distaste for Hux was as great as Finn’s. Probably greater since she had actually tasted his nasty glove.

And now she had him again, this time crumpled on the bottom of an escape pod. He wasn’t so cocky now. She’d expected more snide remarks, and there had been some when she first found his cell that that her half-inclined to leave him there. Once she’d gotten him out, though, he’d been eerily quiet.

“A ‘thank you’ would suffice,” she’d growled at him after they launched, but he had only glared at her, Even that had seemed to tire him. That had been an hour ago, and now she was getting concerned. He’d always been pasty, but now his skin was as colorless as parchment, every blue vein on his closed eyelids standing out. And his breaths were harsh enough for her to hear.

“Hux . . . you alright?”

It was a stupid question. She couldn’t even blame him for insulting her over that.

But he didn’t, which as the most troubling thing.

His eyelids fluttered open as he looked up at her, giving a slight shake of his head. “My . . . my leg.”

Kriff. “Oh . . . alright, well . . . stand up and let me have a look.”

He stared at her like she’d asked him to swallow a sun. Rose sighed.

“Come on . . . I can’t check if you stay down there. There isn’t room for both of us on the floor.”

That seemed to get through to him. He reached for the bottom wrung of the exit ladder and pushed himself up, hissing with pain the second he put weight on the injured leg. Rose reached for his arm to help him, but he snatched it away without a word. Fine, she thought, moving until her back pressed against the other side of the pod. Let him see how much she cared.

Once he had the good leg solidly under him, he collapsed against the wall, panting even louder than before. Rose knelt in front of him, her face only inches from his crotch. Oh, it would be a long time before she forgave Finn for this.

She couldn’t see the bandages hidden underneath his dark jodhpurs, but she’d seen enough war to recognize the scent of blood. The sticky warmth that met her hand when she lightly touched his thigh still made her swear.

“I . . . I didn’t this to myself,” Hux whispered. Rose opened her mouth to make a retort, but none came. He was right.

“I’ll need to change your bandage and . . . give you something for the pain. Okay?”

She looked up for assent, and Hux nodded. When she reached for his waistband, though, he shied away again.

“Come on, Hux!” she snapped, exasperated. “How am I supposed to do this with your pants on, huh?”

That brought the tiniest pit of color into his pallid cheeks.

“I . . . I’d rather do this myself.”

“Fair enough.”

Rose busied herself with the syringe as he unfastened his jodhpurs and pushed them down around his knees, but when she looked at him again she couldn’t hold back a gasp. She’d known he’d bled through his bandages. That much was obvious, but somehow she hadn’t expected blood to be smeared all over his upper thigh from where he’d been sitting on the floor. Then an even more horrifying thought occurred to her.

“Is there . . . is it in your underpants, too?”

Hux’s eyes widened. “No!” It was almost a whimper.

“ ‘No,’ it isn’t or ‘no,’ you won’t take them off for me?”

His eyes shifted and he chewed on his lower lip. All the blood in his body seemed to have flooded into his face.

When Rose reached up, he jerked away again. “No!” he shrieked. There was panic in his eyes, the same as when she’d bitten him. For some reason, though, it wasn’t nearly as satisfying this time.

Rose sighed. “Okay . . . look, just let me inject this painkiller and then we’ll . . . see how you feel.”

His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Just a painkiller?”

She scoffed, trying to quell the shame his looking at her like that had stirred. “Yeah, it’s just a painkiller, Hux.”

He pressed his lips into a thin line. “Proceed then.”

When the needle slipped free, he sighed with relief, and Rose’s gut churned again. He’d expected her to stab him, to make it hurt as much as possible. She ought to be angry, she knew, but what he could be expected to think after Finn . . .

It wouldn’t do to think about that now. Finn had done what he thought best, and now she was here, cleaning up the mess.

“He should’ve shot me in the arm like I asked,” Hux murmured.

“No,” Rose heard herself say. She hesitated, but it was clear they were thinking of the same thing. She might as well get it out.

Hux looked down at her, for the first time truly paying attention. Maybe the drugs were working fast, she thought. Or maybe he actually cared what she had to say.

“He shouldn’t have shot you at all. They should’ve rescued you and saved me the trouble.”

Hux’s lips parted as though he was going to speak, but all he did was stare at her, surprised.

“What? You were our spy. What they did . . . how did that help?”

He closed his mouth, his brows knitting like he was working to solve a riddle. Rose rolled her eyes.

“Look, don’t think this means I don’t hate you, because I do. And I know you don’t care if we win, but . . . if we do? It will be because you helped us. Now, you have to reconcile that with your conscience. If you have one, which I doubt. But for me? My conscience is clear if I help you keep helping us. Understood?”

He was chewing his lip again, just as confused as ever. Rose was about to give up on getting a response when he gave her a tiny nod.

“Good. Now . . . did blood get into your underwear?”

Still eyeing her warily, he nodded. 

Rose made her voice as gentle and non-threatening as she could. “I need you to pull them down for me so I can dispose of them, along with your jodhpurs. There will be clean clothes for you at the base. I promise I won’t . . . look at you.”

Hux hesitated, and she expected further resistance, but after a moment he shifted away from her, reaching for his waistband. Rose turned away, but there was only silence behind her. She ventured a glance over her shoulder. “Is there a problem?”

Hux gestured to the front of his tunic, which Rose now noticed flapped open underneath his belt. “I . . . don’t have a lot of coverage . . . here.”

Rose nodded. “Okay, umm . . . I have a solution.” She shrugged out of her jacket, hoping it wouldn’t be too long before the Resistance found them. It was chilly in the escape pod. Big surprise.

“I’ll sort of . . . drape this in front of you, like a curtain, and then you can just . . . hold it over your lap until we get back.”

Hux frowned as though he didn’t like the idea much, but he had nothing better to offer.

As she bent down, holding her jacket against Hux’s waist as he worked to maneuver his underwear down, she appreciated the absurdity of the situation. What would Paige think of her now?

She would be rolling on the floor, Rose thought, hoping Hux couldn’t see her smirk.

It was messy, taking care of her enemy, but it was a smaller price than her sister had had to pay for victory.

“What about my boots?” Hux asked, so abruptly that Rose took a moment to understand what he meant.

“Oh . . . yeah. I’ll have to cut them. One of them.”

He hissed like she’d offered to cut his foot.

“Do you think that leg could take the pain of pulling it off?”

Hux considered that a little longer than Rose thought sane. “No. I suppose you’re right.”

“Good. Get used to saying that. The boots can wait, though. Let’s re-bandage this leg first.”


End file.
